Kevin's gone now.  I am very sad.  First Dan moved to Florida.  Then Phil moved to California.  Then Paleddy moved to NOLA.  And now Kevin has also moved to Cali.  Shit.  Well, Matt Guarneri is coming back.  Amanda contacted me the other day.  It's almost surreal, I haven't seen her or talked to her in so long.  I am afraid to call her.  I don't really know why, it's just a person that I knew.  It's silly you know.  She hasn't called me yet either though, so, go figure.  I have been pretty sick lately with bronchitis.  Yuck.  I haven't smoked a cigarette in two days, which is a lot for a smoker you know.  I just started to have the craving really hit me tonight.  It's paralyzing you know.  My Dad called me to tell me of a quote of someone that was a famous author of some kind.  He was at the later parts of his life, and one of his biggest regrets was that he smoked while he was sick or had bronchitis.  I really want to follow that advice.  I actually had already been thinking of it when I got sick.  It's something I think about everytime I feel sick, not smoking a damn cigarette.  Christ, I really wish I hadn't started in the first place.  It's like a rush you can't even describe.  It's awful.  The last night I saw Kevin, at Bramer's, we watched Saw II.  It's a violent ass movie, but there was a part of it that really made me reconsider myself, and my life I suppose.  Like I really hadn't been living before then.  It's seems so stupid to find a deep philosophical meaning in a horror movie with such a bizarre and ridiculous premise, but it just struck me in a really odd manner.  I really want to spend more time playing guitar and reading.  Computers have become so distracting.  I suppose that if I had not become incredible distracted with computers for so much of my life, that much of it would not be possible because I rely entirely on my computer expertise to have a job.  Hell, this weblog entry is only possible because of the enormous amounts of time I have spent teaching myself perl and designing my own web posting interface for djekz.com and cytoplastik.com.  Sometimes though, I wish I was stupid.  I wish I was a simpleton working at a sub shop again oblivious to the surrounding world and its horrors.  That brings me to gas.  Gas is so goddamn expensive.  I paid $32 to fill my tank tonight.  I drive a small japanese car because american made cars suck (I'm sorry it's true, get over it you Ford driving, budweiser drinking, redneck america)   About five or six years ago, when I started driving, I could pretty much get by with $8 or $9 worth of gas and that would almost completely fill the tank.  People have sent me myspace messages recently urging not to purchase gas from Exxon and Mobil so that they will feel the impact of the consumer's decision.  This is not so easy for me.  I live in columbia, which is the heart of consumerism.  Where the fuck am I supposed to go to get gas?  Am I gonna drive 10 miles out of my way to spend just as much money when my car is already on empty?  I just can't do it.  I can't spend my life dedicating it to this save the world agenda.  I want to get the fuck out of this god-forsaken country, but where can you go?  Everywhere you look, business runs the world.  Human interest? Corporate responsibility?  C'mon, get real.  This country is built on the backs of slaves and poor citizens being robbed blind by greedy corporations.  People will have to start dying by the hundreds of thousands in some catastrophic event even more magnificent and elaborate than Hurricane Katrina for the country to start striving for change of any kind in it's moral and ethical standards for doing business.   I hope I don't have to live to see that event.